Happy Halloween! All right, now that’s out of the way let me say that there are different kinds of blues musicians. There are blues rockers who make their reputations with searing guitar solos and there are blues bar bands who may be great musicians but whose focus is making sure you have a good time. […]
Garrett Owen – Memoriam
The words “surprising” and “folk music” rarely appear together in the same sentence. There are plenty of good reasons for that. Perhaps the most common is just that people like what’s familiar. Most artists are trying, at some level, to perform music their fans like. So picking up where you left off the last time […]
“Big Dreams” – a Video Premiere from Tyler-James Kelly
Tyler-James Kelly is known to many as the former singer/songwriter/guitarist for late, great Providence, Rhode Island rock band The Silks. With his debut solo release, however, Kelly takes his talent in an entirely different musical direction. Dream River hearkens back to the days of Willie and Waylon, a glorious collection of classic country songs brought […]
Paul Kelly on Writing Songs and His “Anti-Career”
Legendary Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly talks about working as a “dish pig” and describes time spent in a rental van at the beginning and the ending of tour.
Monday Morning Video – Matthew Sweet
Matthew Sweet emerged in the era of grunge and broke through by combining the intensity of that genre with the melodic grandeur of power pop. The results were potent. Sweet recently suffered a massive stroke while on tour in Canada. Like many independent musicians, Sweet doesn’t have adequate insurance coverage. He now faces a long […]
Readers’ Pick: Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham – Cunningham Bird
You picked Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham – Cunningham Bird as your favorite new release for the week of October 18, 2024.
Long Prairie – By Sunrise
Movies made the transition to color from black-and-white along about the time of The Wizard of Oz, held back only by the economics in the years of the Depression. Photography, on the other hand, maintains a vibrant vein of black-and-white artistry to this day. Monochrome enhances the effect of light and shadow without the distraction […]
Singles Club – A Special Twangville Playlist
I typically stick to writing about albums and EPs – it’s enough to just keep up with all of those. There have been a slew of stand-alone singles over the past several months, however, that caught my attention. Here’s a sampling of them. Optimistic, Fee Doyle I had a conversation earlier this year with a […]
Amy Speace – The American Dream
In this year of election divisiveness perhaps no topic separates people more than what it means to live the American dream. When I saw the title of Amy Speace’s latest album, I wondered how she was going to address the issue. Instead of painting a picture of what it is, Speace instead offers vignettes of […]
Kasey Chambers on Lucinda Williams and Simplifying Her Approach to Touring
Australian singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers talks about her “inner foghorn” and the cover songs she sang at her first gig. and shares